Senate Update: Democrats Draw Almost Even

hen we officially launched our forecast model two weeks ago, it had Republicans with a 64 percent chance of taking over the Senate after this fall’s elections. Now Republican chances are about 55 percent instead.
We’ve never quite settled on the semantics of when to call an election a
“tossup.” A sports bettor or poker player would grimace and probably
take a 55-45 edge. But this Senate race is pretty darned close.

What’s happened? The chart below lists the change in
our forecast in each state between Sept. 3 (when our model launched) and
our current (Sept. 15) update.

As you can see, there hasn’t been an across-the-board
shift. Republicans’ odds have improved in several important races since
the launch of our model. Democrats’ odds have improved in several
others. But the two states with the largest shifts have been Colorado
and North Carolina — in both cases, the movement has been in Democrats’
direction. That accounts for most of the difference in the forecast.

It might help to break the states down into several groups:

Republican defenses (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky). These are the three Republican-held seats where Democrats have some chance for a pickup. Democrats got good news in Kansas two weeks ago
when their own candidate, Chad Taylor, ceased his campaign in the state
— improving the odds for the center-left independent candidate, Greg
Orman. Orman, however, is a slight underdog against the Republican
incumbent Pat Roberts, and Orman isn’t certain to caucus with Democrats if he wins.
Meanwhile, Democrats’ odds have declined somewhat in Georgia and
Kentucky. Taken as a group then, these states have not produced much
change in the overall forecast.

Republican path of least resistance states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia).
These are the six Democratic-held seats in deeply red states. If the
GOP wins each one — while holding all their own seats — they’ll win the
Senate. Republicans remain favored in each of these six races, and their
odds haven’t changed much since we launched our forecast. (They’re
doing a tiny bit better in Alaska and a tiny bit worse in Louisiana, but
these changes cancel out.)

Highly competitive purple states (Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina). These
are the five competitive Senate races — all seats are currently held by
Democrats — in states generally considered presidential swing states.
It’s here where Democrats have gained ground. There have been numerous recent polls in North Carolina,
including two released on Monday, showing Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan
ahead. Her odds of holding her seat have improved to 68 percent from 46
percent when the model launched. Colorado has followed a similar path,
with Democratic Sen. Mark Udall’s chances of keeping his seat improving
to 69 percent from 47 percent. Democrats have also made smaller gains in
Iowa and Michigan. New Hampshire has been an exception. The model isn’t
buying that the race is tied, as a CNN poll implied Monday, but it does have Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s chances falling from 81 percent to 75 percent.

Republican reaches (Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia).
These states are only on the fringe of being competitive and haven’t
received much attention from the news media or from pollsters. But each
has been polled at least twice since our model launched. Those polls
haven’t shown Democrats gaining or losing any ground — but they have
confirmed Democrats are ahead, often by double-digit margins. Our model
shows more confidence as the volume of polling increases, so these polls
have also slightly helped Democrats.

Most of the Democrats’ gains, however, have come from
the purple states. What’s perplexing is that this has happened right as
Democrats’ position on the generic congressional ballot — probably the
best indicator of the national mood — has deteriorated.
Historically, the generic ballot and state-by-state Senate polls —
while not perfectly correlated — have moved in tandem more often than
not. On average since 1990, a one-percentage-point change in the generic
ballot has translated to a half-point change (in the same party’s
direction) in the average Senate race.

Money could be a more important factor.
Consider the states with the largest polling movement: In North
Carolina, Hagan had $8.7 million in cash on hand as of June 30 as
compared with just $1.5 million for her Republican opponent, Thom
Tillis. In Colorado, Udall had $5.7 million as compared with $3.4
million for Republican Cory Gardner.

These totals do not account for outside spending. But in stark contrast to 2010, liberal and Democratic “super PACs” have spent slightly more money
so far than conservative and Republican ones, according to the the
Center for Responsive Politics. (One caveat for Democrats is that when
money is spent on advertising, it can sometimes have short-lived effects.)

Whatever the reason, the GOP’s path to a Senate
majority is less robust than before. They still look pretty good in the
“path of least resistance” states. But while West Virginia, Montana and
South Dakota are extremely likely pickups, Alaska, Arkansas and
Louisiana are not sure things. Meanwhile, Republicans have fewer
top-tier backup options, as states like North Carolina and Colorado have
trended away from them. Republicans may need to decide whether to
consolidate their resources. It won’t help them if they lose each of
Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina by a couple of
percentage points — and in the process blow a state like Arkansas.

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